Everyone has an off day. What makes it rise to the elevation of “bad” though belongs in the eye of the first person. That first person in this post is Peter Skillen.

I’ve had many a conversation with Peter about the good, the bad, and the ugly in education. He definitely is a person that you want to make that type of connection with.

I also think I know where some of the buttons are that you can push to get him going. Recently, a blogger pushed one of them and Peter pushed back. The sacred moment this time around? Failing to recognize the big shoulders of those we stand on today.

This educator was absolutely well-intentioned but there were errors in the definitions and in the representation of educational pedagogies of previous recent decades.

If you do a study of the history of teaching pedagogy, it is rich with solid research. If you look at the recent efforts, there’s more of a rush to get them out instead of researching them properly. Just because it’s the newest and shiniest doesn’t always equate into the best.

We do stand on the shoulders of giants. All of us should recognize this.

This is a natural followup to the above. You can disagree without being disagreeable and that’s what quality people do. However, you must remain civil in a kind society. That wasn’t the case for Paul McGuire. His words…

In a world that is growing crueler and less civil …

Paul’s good intentions drew him into a post from Andrew Campbell and a Twitter discussion that he captures and shares in this post.

Being civil should be the way things are done whether online or not. I’m saddened deeply to read of Paul’s experience.

Here’s a tech tip from Laressa Aradj. Green Screening isn’t a new concept. We’ve been doing it for years. I can recall going out and buying big screens of green velvet and our Clay Animation kits and the magic that we were able to make happen with the technique.

I always started my workshops by telling people that we were going to discover the secrets of being a weather person. But, you have to be careful with what you wear; I remember my friend Nazreen volunteering me as a dummy for Hall Davidson’s keynote at ECOO a few years ago. I was wearing a blue/green chequered shirt and the results were, well, disastrous.

But with the right clothes and the right tools, you and your class can be magic makers as well. For Laressa’s post, the right tools are:

Sphero is one of the more popular robots that you can acquire for your classroom and program to do various things. Derek Tangredi offers this post as a source for three additional applications to make your little roller do things.

The original inspiration for the post came from the fear that a common application was no longer going to be free. (If you check the URL, you’ll get a hint) I only have had experience with the first two applications. I have a number of other applications that I’ve accumulated on my iPad for the purpose of playing around with Sphero.

The goal shouldn’t be for students to become fluent with more than one application as a way to add rigour into the process. I’d evaluate all of the options available to you and choose the one that completely addresses your reason for coding with Sphero.

Alfred Thompson, just today, shared a terrific link in a blog post. The 5 Worst Ways to Teach Computer Science. That, and Alfred’s post How to Teach Computer Scienceoffer great advice for anyone teaching programming or coding. Alfred’s sixth point is important – you don’t do everyone on the computer – is important. Students should have solved the problem before they ever go near a computer or device and have a reasonable feeling that they’ll be successful.

Derek’s recommendation? Well, you’ll have to click through to his post to find out!